Brain Science: Penn Medicine, 76ers, Digital Mental Health | Xylazine | NBA 2K23

The Philadelphia 76ers recently announced a multiyear partnership with Penn Medicine, as the official healthcare, orthopedic and hospital partner of the team.

There was no mention of mental health in the announcement, even though a former 76ers player, Ben Simmons, said he did not get the support he needed from the organization, when he had mental health issues.

The announcement came also as John Wall, NBA star with the Clippers, said in an emotive essay that he contemplated suicide, after he had a number of intense of personal bad news.

Recently too, there was a study, “Perspectives of people in Philadelphia who use fentanyl/heroin adulterated with the animal tranquilizer xylazine; Making a case for xylazine test strips” discussing a growing trend in drug addiction using xylazine, with street name, tranq, and the need for action against it.

People with substance use disorder do not do so for brain cells or chemicals, they do in the felt experience adjusted by thought and memory.

In recent times, mental health is often widely mentioned, but how does the brain simply work to determine its stretches that someone in a dark place or bad place can understand that this is where thoughts are, and these are properties it has acquired to express this experience?

Mental health problem is not a social, economic, political, environmental or other generally mentioned issue, those things are subjective. They may decide for some in some instances, but not for everyone all the time.

Words that can hurt don’t always hurt. They become thoughts and may acquire the properties that decide if they would or not, at that moment or subsequently. This is the same for situations.

Experiences vary among people, but the constants of all mental health, ill-health, illness and addiction is thought and memory.

How does thought transport across memory locations to decide what becomes a happy or sad experience? How can thought be displayed as a digital mental health solution widely available, for a token, to at least understand the architecture of the mind, across situations and conditions?

In brain science, all senses are transmitted at the thalamus, except for smell, transmitted at the olfactory bulb. It is at those hubs they are processed or integrated before relay, to the cerebral cortex for interpretation.

It is theorized that sensory processing or integration is into a uniform unit or identity which is thought or a form of thought. It is what senses become to the brain to be used, or simply how the brain creates the mind. Anything in the external world is a thought version to the brain: the ball, court, basket, language, music, video game, NBA 2K23, devices and so on, are all in the form of thought to the brain.

It is in that form that thinking, imagination, subvocalization, dreams, predictions, perception and so on, are made. Thoughts are elements of senses [smell, sight, touch, vision and taste]. Thought is also how experiential interaction with the world is made. As things are sensed, they are converted to thought, they go to where they can be known, or see and know, if known could be fine, if not or forgotten, the approach is different, but it is with thoughts that the mind explores all.

Interpretation is postulated to be knowing, feeling and reaction. Knowing is memory. Memory stores thoughts and its form. It is how and to what major stores relays are made by small stores that determine the states of mind.

Mental health is mostly thought and memory. It is an important opportunity for Penn Medicine, 76ers, or others, to display across devices, to broaden understanding of how the brain works the thought and memory of every state of consciousness, to draw parallels to experiences, away from the current opacity confusing global mental health.